


Just Breathe

by Elektra Pendragon (elekdragon)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Chemical Weapons, Comfort, Injury, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-25
Updated: 2005-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elekdragon/pseuds/Elektra%20Pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin is injured, and Obi-Wan saves him. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this shortly after AotC. I thought it was interesting enough to save most of it and try to finish it. I think I was speculating with a friend about how Ani gets his signature Wheeze, plus we were wanting a little hurt/comfort.

Not even the clones' respirators could protect them. It was some new mixture, insidious and caustic, finding any small chink in their armor and sliding through. The ones who were not already dead were dying. One by one, they fell all around Anakin as the grey-pink fog filled the battleground around them.

His skin burned, even as he pulled his cloak close around him. The fabric was like sand against his flesh, abrasive and painful everywhere. It was no barrier to the gas. Anakin tried not to breathe. The poisoned gas would burn his lungs, eating through his body from the inside if he didn't die of the toxins first. But after a point, there was no way to NOT breathe it. He had to open his throat, he had to breathe in the air because there was oxygen there, and his body needed it. He had to breathe because if he didn't, he would have died anyway. He had to hold out, just a little longer, just until his Master would come.

The first breath in, and it was like inhaling fire. He held it in as long as he could, letting his blood drain away the remnants of oxygen as the gas slowly ate away the layers of delicate tissue inside him. The second breath was like blood. The third, like drowning.

Obi-Wan arrived by the fourth, had him over his shoulder by the fifth. By the sixth, Anakin was coughing and gasping the clear, blessed, magic air of the transport. White, expressionless faces swarmed around him like bugs, crawling over the walls and making chirping, clicking noises. Only Obi-Wan was human, was there as Anakin coughed up pieces of brunt skin, dark brown chunks of his once-healthy lungs. There with his hand on Anakin's back, helping to support him as he coughed up blood and bile and flesh. There to rub a hand down his spine, trying to help him breathe.

***

The poison gas had burned Anakin's lungs, his skin, but he was alive. His face and hands healed in the bacta, but his lungs were harder to repair. They were able to save and repair most of his left lung, and though only a small portion of his right lung was still fully functional, he could breathe most of the time without pain. There were times, though, when it would bother him. Sometimes after a workout. Sometimes for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. He had a small respir of bacta mist with him always, his daily treatment to ensure continued health of the remaining tissues. Sometimes it would help. Sometimes, nothing would.

Anakin awoke with his mechanical hand clutching at his shirt, pulling it away as though the loose fabric were choking him. He tried to breathe, to relax, but there was nothing there. He could feel the cool wind on his tongue, the dry crackle of it down his throat, but his blood screamed out its starvation until he wanted to claw through his chest.

He couldn't breathe.

Anakin tried to calm the panic that came with the attack. There was pain, and then there was the fearful fluttering of his heart as he would breathe in and out uselessly. Oxygen was there, it was filling what remained of his lungs, but it was not passing into him. His lungs weren't working.

Anakin held his breath, fighting the panic, the fluttering of his pulse, the pain in his chest. He could go a long time without breathing; he knew that from experience. He knew that. But eventually, he would need air. It was much harder to not breathe when surrounded by good, clean air than it was surrounded by death.

Obi-Wan seemed to know when these times come. He was there, the only sound in the darkness as Anakin held his breath. Obi-Wan's hand rested, light and warm, on Anakin's chest. The warmth spread through Anakin's skin, seeping down between his ribs, soaking into what was left of his lungs.

"Just breathe," Obi-Wan said.

And he did. With one wheezing, painful breath, he filled his lungs with air. His aching body crumbled, nearly rebelling against the relief it craved. He exhaled, cringing at the whistle, the tingle in his throat that made him want to double over with coughs. He hated the sound of the slow, raspy breaths, so he concentrated on Obi-Wan's soft inhales and exhales, the relieved sigh, the whispers to keep going.

The panic receded, the fear faded, the pain did not grow but remained, burning low in his chest in places where he knew there was no more of his lungs to ache with each breath. He squinted in the darkness to see Obi-Wan's face, to stare into his eyes as he concentrated on breathing. Obi-Wan noticed the focus of his gaze, and smiled. His hand rubbed against Anakin's chest, a soothing, promising pat.

"Just breathe."

And he did.


End file.
